I love to make things and I often combine my love of crafts and vintage by using old patterns. I spend lots of time trawling the internet and archives to find vintage patterns so I have decided to spread the joy and share a pattern each week for you to enjoy and possibly inspire you to get making! 

Some of you may be familiar with this week's pattern - The Victory Jumper is an iconic knit from 1945. Bold patriotic colours and a lace stitch pattern make this stand out. I am currently half way through making this and it is not quite as daunting as it looks. After a few rows, the lace pattern becomes quite easy to remember. Check back in a few weeks to see how mine has turned out! 

You can download the pattern from the V and A in their 1940s Patterns to Knit collection. What do you think of the Victory Jumper - would you make it? I think it would also look great in other stripe patterns and colour combos. 

Come back next Wednesday to see what pattern I've got for you then! Do let me know in the comments if there is anything you are trying to find...

Sophie from Retrovert 

I love pancakes and I have them for breakfast every week. They are too good to have them just once a year on Shrove Tuesday! I have been making pancakes since I was a kid. It is probably one on the first recipes I learnt and now remember off by heart. With just three basic ingredients it is incredibly simple - the kind of recipe you can whip up in the morning before you've fully woken up. 

4 oz Plain Flour 
1 egg
1/2 pint of milk (or use half milk and half water)

Weigh the flour, add the egg and then pour in about a quarter of the milk. Mix until very smooth with no lumps. Then add the remaining liquid. And now your batter is complete. Told you it was easy! 

To cook your pancakes heat a little oil up in a flat frying pan. When you add the batter it should hiss and this shows that the pan is hot enough. The trick to getting a nice thin pancake is to pour in the mixture slowly covering about three quarters of the base, and then quickly pick up the pan and swivel it to spread the batter out into a thin layer. Cook for around a minute until the top is starting to cook. Then turn it and cook on the other side for another minute or until cooked to your preference. 

If you are feeling ambitious and want to toss your a pancake then here are my tips: 

• Make sure it is cooked enough before you try, otherwise you will end up with something resembling scrambled egg. 
  
• Shake the pan to loosen the pancake. If it moves easily you are ready to try flipping it. 
• The toss is in a flick of the wrist - tilt the pan slightly down then give a sharp upward flick to toss your pancake into the air. 
• Have fun and give it a go - you can always double the batter for a bit of practice beforehand. 
• Keeping a pan just for pancakes makes them easier to toss. Look after it by wiping with kitchen paper after using instead of washing, and try not to burn anything in it to keep the surface non stick. 

So there you have it - a super easy pancake recipe. Lemon and sugar is a great traditional topping. Personally I am rather partial to melted chocolate and raspberries. However you have them - Enjoy! 

Sophie from Retrovert x

Every year I participate in a recreation of tudor life at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk. It is wonderful way to learn about history and the fashions of the time. I play the role of a dyer and spend my time transforming wool into a rainbow of colours, using natural dyes made from plants. 

There is something so satisfying about the colours that can be obtained from plants, they all have a resonance with each other and blend beautifully. It is rather a magical process to start with something as simple as a plant and end up with such brilliant colours. My two favourite dyes to use are weld, which gives a luminous yellow, and woad, which produces blue. If you want to try out natural dyeing yourself then the books Wild Colour by Jenny Dean and A Dyer's Manual by Jill Goodwin are a good start. 

Here is the lovely array of dyed wool I brought back with me. The green is made by dyeing first with weld for yellow and then overdyeing in a blue woad vat. 

I failed to get anyone to take a picture of me in my full tudor outfit, but here is my latest hand felted and dyed addition to it. You know I am never able to resist a silly hat! 

So that is what I got up to on my holiday. I hope you've been enjoying the summer too! 

Sophie x

p.s. I can't resist sharing this lovely sunrise and sunset that I captured, aren't they just beautiful....

Today I thought I'd share with you some of the resources I have found on vintage knitting and crochet, in my quest for patterns to try out myself. 

As with cooking from vintage recipes, making items from old patterns is not an exact science and often requires some guesswork. But if you like experimenting, it can be great fun! 

One of the most useful collections I have found is the Victoria and Albert Museum's 1940s Patterns to Knit. There is a nice mix of patterns - from ones that provide an insight into the wartime effort such as 'The Balaclava Helmet' and the 'Fatigue Cap' (which converts to a scarf) and patterns which would still be very wearable today, like the 'Victory Jumper' and 'Fair Isle Gloves'. I've found the patterns are easy to download and follow. I'm going to try my hand at the Victory Jumper as I just love the combination of blue and red. 

The Open Library has several books on knitting and crochet that you can read online. The Art of Knitting has a particularly good section on knitting stitches, patterns and borders that could be incorporated into all sorts of projects. 

The Knitting Reference Library at the University of Southampton has digitised the Richard Rutt collection of Victorian knitting manuals.  Though perhaps the patterns are mainly of interest for historical and reenactment use, there are some rather nice patterns for lace shawls and baby boots which might be worth trying out. Many of the books are lovely just to look at, and interesting to read for their historical significance - I rather took a fancy to 'Ladies Work for Sailors' which contains patterns such as Sea Boot Stockings, Steering Gloves and Comforters. 

Vintage Purls, a New Zealand yarn supplier has a good section of out of copyright patterns, including some great 50s examples and super cute baby dresses. 

Subversive Femme shares free vintage knitting patterns on her blog, as well as selling copies in her Etsy shop. She is a self confessed vintage obsessive and has a very enviable wardrobe of vintage originals and handmade garments. 

The National Library of Australia has digitised issues of the Australian Women's Weekly from 1933 to 1982 and searches for knitting and crochet return over 3000 results each. There are some real gems to be found in this collection and I think this 50s cardigan is rather stunning. 

As you can see there is a wealth of places to find free knitting and crochet patterns online, but if you fancy an original paper copy then I would recommend keeping your eye out in the local charity shops and having a search on Etsy. 

I'm halfway through knitting a 1940s lace pattern snood myself. Are you currently making something from a vintage pattern? If not, I hope I have inspired you to try! 

It seems like all things sewing and dressmaking are seeing a massive resurgence in recent years, and the popularity of the Great British Sewing Bee certainly looks to propel it even further. 

I've recently embarked on a mission to improve my sewing skills through making a garment for myself each month. I plan to mainly use vintage fabrics and upcycled materials, and to recreate patterns and looks based on garments from the past. 

For my first project I thought I'd start with something nice and simple - making a 50s style circle skirt from a 60s floral tablecloth. It was a joy to make and I have learnt a lot along the way. Here's how I made it I you fancy having a go too...

First find the centre of your circle by measuring the halfway point across from edge to edge several times. 

Next, you need to do some more maths, but I promise it's not too scary! Measure your waist circumference, then divide it by pi, and again by two, to find out the radius of the circle you will need to cut out of the fabric for your waist. If that all seemed like gibberish then here is an example using my measurements:

Waist = 24 inches 
Divide waist measurement by pi - 24/3.14 = 7.6 Diameter
Divide diameter by two - 7.6/2 = 3.8 Radius

To mark your waist seam on the fabric simply draw a circle with this radius centred on your mid point.  I used the trusty 'pencil tied to some string' method to draw mine. Next mark your back seam for the zipper from the centre point, straight down to the hem. I didn't allow for seam allowance at the waist, as I found this was equalled out by the take up in circumference by the radial seam need for the zip. 

You are now ready to cut your fabric along the lines you have marked and move onto the sewing. Zigzig along your zip seam edges, or overlock them if you're lucky enough to have the equipment ;-) 

This was the very first project I've done involving a zip and I used this tutorial on Make It Love It. Basically, you sew up the entire seam, tape on the zip (I hand basted it for extra security), then sew either side of the zip close to the teeth, and then unpick the seam from the top to reveal the zip. I found that though this  took more time than other methods, it resulted in a good finish. 

To finish your skirt you can edge the waist with bias binding, or you can make a waistband like I did. Cut a strip of fabric (with seam allowance) longer than your waist measurement and double the width you want your finished band to be. Cut a matching piece of interlining or stiffening fabric. I embroidered my waistband for added detail. 

To attach it to the skirt you can either pin it and sew right sides together and then 'stitch in the ditch' all the way round, or, as I did, hand hem the inside raw edge, so that no stitching is visible. I then finished the waistband ends by hand and stitched on two hooks and eyes to complete the skirt. 

And here I am modelling it in all its glory! It must say I am rather pleased with it and it does twirl beautifully. The fullness of the circle also creates a lovely drape.

So there you have it! What do think of my first foray into dressmaking? 

Have you made any clothing recently? Don't forget that the second episode of The Great British Sewing Bee is on at 8pm tonight... Enjoy! 

Well it's twelfth night and Christmas is officially over, but I couldn't resist sharing this great vintage recipe I made for the big day.

The idea of the Empire Christmas Pudding emerged in the 1920s and aimed to promote using ingredients from countries throughout the British Empire. The Empire Marketing Board campaigned up until the war to promote the pudding and other recipes. There was even a propaganda film about a boy who, after seeing the pudding in a shop window, has a dream about visiting all the empire countries to find the ingredients. You can watch it here (though I haven't actually made it through all 69 minutes!)

My adventure obtaining the ingredients was somewhat less film-worthy, though it did prove challenging in some respects. Here is what I managed to find:

I couldn't find candied peel anywhere but Italy or any South African lemons or oranges to make my own, so I left this out to not compromise the 'Empireness' of the pudding. I searched in vain for sugar from the West Indies or Guiana, but in the end settled for some from Mauritius. Brandy from anywhere but France seemed impossible to find so we substituted some good old Scottish whiskey. 

I didn't look quite as elegant as this 30s housewife making the pudding, but here I am in the kitchen with our giant mixing bowl that always comes out this time of year. I just mixed everything all together, left in a covered pudding basin over night and then steamed for 8 hours.

As is tradition we set our Christmas on fire before serving. We had to use French brandy, though as we burnt it away it seemed fine and rather in the spirit of the British Empire! Then came the eating and boy it was good - deliciously flavoured and with a perfect texture. I don't know if this had anything to do with the countries the ingredients came from, but I liked the idea behind it.

So there you have it - a classic British recipe from the past and one to try for next year! What did you cook this Christmas?